Comment: Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?

Wednesday 18 January 2017

It was a truly astonishing day in the States of Jersey.

In case you missed it, here's the summary: yesterday, one of the Island's top politicians, and the man responsible for the critical financial services industry, has resigned over his political role in the serious mismanagement of a Fund. Yes, one of those things our local finance industry does rather well.

As a parting shot, Senator Philip Ozouf warned that he wouldn't be going alone, and other Ministers would also have to take responsibility for their actions. 

But it was also the resignation that wasn't. Senator Ozouf circulated a statement of what he intended to say - that he would OFFER his resignation as Assistant Chief Minister - to his fellow States Members. And within minutes Reform Jersey tweeted the key paragraph, thereby breaking the news early.

Cue intense confusion in the States Assembly over whether Senator Ozouf had actually resigned, given no statement had been made - but it had been circulated, and published by Reform Jersey. 

Which led to a highly tetchy exchange between the Bailiff and the Chief Minister -  the two most senior public figures in the Island - over the best way forward, and whether Senator Ozouf was allowed to actually make his statement and then take questions. On a procedural technicality, the Bailiff over-ruled the Chief Minister, and decided that Senator Ozouf couldn't take questions - a point which is sure to re-open the debate about having an unelected, and therefore unaccountable to the public, figure ruling on matters in the Island's parliament. 

Later, the Chief Minister was in hot water again - this time over exactly what was happening. Under considerable pressure to clarify that Senator Ozouf was offering his resignation, and that he would accept it, Senator Gorst was strangely reticent to use the term "resign", preferring "step aside," and to say for definite he would acquiesce, once any letter from Senator Ozouf was received. 

Once again the Bailiff had to step in and force the Chief Minister to say finally, "yes," he WOULD accept Senator Ozouf's resignation, once received. 

So, the current position is that as of this morning, nothing has happened. But, given the events yesterday, Senator Ozouf will have to write to the Chief Minister offering to step down as Assistant Chief Minister, and Senator Gorst will have to accept it. Was that what they planned before the events of yesterday? We'll never know. 

As resignations go, it was very far from the quick, clean break which has been the norm in the UK since the early 1990s, if a Minister even appears to have erred. Rightly or wrongly, that sort of quick and decisive action mitigates future collateral damage - and that wasn't what we got in Jersey yesterday, with a messy resignation involving counter accusations and innuendo. 

What we have are comments from senior ministers to the extent that our government system doesn't clearly allocate responsibility - Senator Ozouf described it as "chaos" and a "nightmare" - that, effectively, Ministers have no control over senior civil servants, and repeatedly don't get the information they ask for; that the basic administration of government isn't followed through with responsibility for innovation being given to a Minister, but without the actual powers to do the job.

And bizarrely, that no one seems to know for sure who is in charge of a particular aspect of government business at all (otherwise why have more reviews to find out?)

Perhaps most alarmingly from a leadership perspective, that Ministers will pass blame firmly to their staff when something goes wrong - what effect will that have on the rest of the public sector? 

What sort of appetite for risk will that public sector have now that they know Ministers won't support them if the train crashes? 

So, what happens next? We've had one thorough, comprehensive and independent review by the Comptroller and Auditor General - but we must now wait for another three, each looking at a specific aspect of the issue. It may sound thorough - but it actually means that this one issue will run for many months yet, that more resignations may yet come, and that more highly damaging and embarrassing allegations about the way Jersey does its business will follow. 

The messenger will be repeatedly shot, as the media will be blamed for covering the story - how dare they! And in a democracy, too! Shame on them.

But the real result is that a bad situation couldn't really have been made much worse. Hence the misquoted Sun headline which opens this piece - will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?

On the basis of yesterday, amid the disarray in the upper reaches of government, there might not be many takers to wait that long.